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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549695">Final Moments</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vesperione/pseuds/Vesperione'>Vesperione</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Friday - Team StarKid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anxiety, Fights, Hospitals, Lies, M/M, Manipulation, Pain, Straight Angst, Symbolism, The Black And White, father/son figure, hatred against a significant other, heart monitors, i promise im being satire with that fact, mentor/mentee figure, the sniggles are still non binary gang, the sniggles are technically wilbur cross and wigglys children, wilbur cross has an addiction to green apples</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:07:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,578</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549695</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vesperione/pseuds/Vesperione</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets placed in The Black and White by choice, and Wilbur opens up about the truth. Though it hurts, it's something that needs to be acknowledged...unless he's lying?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John McNamara &amp; Wilbur Cross, John McNamara/Xander Lee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Final Moments</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hello, i'm back with a fic where mcnamander is not the primary ship !!! i hope u enjoyed because i wrote this spontaneously. it was originally gonna be a crackfic between wilbur and wiggly, i had the uwu generator up and everything but ended up with this. </p><p>takes place on black friday btw, i don't know if there are any triggers aside from being told not good enough by a father figure, manipulation and death. </p><p>and icacks is the man who founded peip, btw, but if u read the sypf series, you'd know that already. proceeding:</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mainly, John McNamara had found himself floating. He’d been floating and floating until he’d hit hard ground. The President was long gone by now, out of the portal and safe from harm’s way with Xander, most likely being transported to Marine One by his agents. Xander would probably sob his heart out later on tonight when he was alone, but John had done what had to be done, not like it really mattered, for the war that had once been on the line was now happening as he thought. The President was far away, everything and everyone was far away, and there was nothing he could do except keep floating and floating until he hit hard ground. When he eventually did, he felt something rope-like wrap around his stomach, tugging him forward. He sped through the air, if there were any to begin with, and ended up back on the hard ground in the watery like consistency below him. He coughed and rubbed his stomach, trying to piece together where he was, and while he did so, he became overly aware of the creatures surrounding, and an all too familiar gravelly voice that came with them.</p><p>
  <em>“Hello naughty list.”</em>
</p><p>John stopped and looked up at the man before him, denim clad and holding the apple that never seemed to be bitten down to the core. The General shuddered as he looked around him. Besides him were human-like figures dressed in a pale green shirt that read <em>WIGGLY </em>on the logo, with green shorts and opaque green tights. Some wore headbands, and some didn’t. John chose not to label them as male and female, for he figured that gender didn’t exist in this realm anyway. Behind Cross was a glowing green entity with long tentacles that splashed down into the watery floor with headlights for eyes. Wiggly.</p><p>“What do you want, Wilbur?” John couldn’t hold back a sigh as he drew his eyes away, biting the inside of his cheek, preparing himself for some degrading insult that were to follow, but nothing came except John being violently pulled to his feet and being forced to stare into the eyes of his former mentor.</p><p>“Let’s walk,” he told him, and began to walk in the opposite direction.</p><p>John, knowing no better, decided to follow him. He followed him, as did those creatures that he now recognised as “The Sniggles” from the Wiggly commercial to begin with. John couldn’t help but laugh at the scene that was happening around him. His mentor, who had gone mentally insane, had now made peace with an eldritch god and it’s children. Fan-fucking-tastic.</p><p>“Is something funny?”</p><p>John looked to Wilbur, who had stopped walking, and was now facing his mentee, an eyebrow raised, and an arm wrapped across his waist, the other holding the apple which he took another bite into.</p><p>“No, sir.”</p><p>“Then I expect you to listen to what we’re doing here.”</p><p>John watched as Wilbur took a seat on a black chair which had appeared out of nowhere, almost materialising into the space they were in.</p><p>“Take a seat.”</p><p>So that was exactly what John did. He imagined sitting down, and he expected himself to fall, for The Black and White to play some cruel trick on him, but he found himself safely seated on a cushioned chair.</p><p>“Let’s talk.”</p><p>“Oh, so you abandoned PEIP for 13 years and as soon as we reunite, you want to talk? Alright, Wilbur, alright.” John rolled his eyes, forcing back a smile, and he heard the snarl in Wilbur’s voice again.</p><p>“I’m expecting you to act better than this, Jonathan, for I trained you, after all.”</p><p>“How could I forget?” John, indeed, had forgotten, yet the memories soon came flooding back. A young John McNamara, standing against his mentor’s chest, with Wilbur’s arms wrapped tightly around him as the golden haired man sobbed because of his parents, or how Wilbur would let John into the gym early because of the anger he’d kept pent up for so long. How Wilbur offered John a home when he got kicked out, and how Wilbur started talking at becoming John’s legal guardian…and then January 13<sup>th</sup> happened.</p><p>“The Black and White called me for a reason.”</p><p>The younger general looked up to the colonel before him, the silence being cut with a knife.</p><p>“And what reason would be <em>so </em>important to get a 17-year-old boy’s hopes up, and then leave him when he was 21?” He let his eyebrow raise into an arch and he heard the groan from his mentor’s throat that echoed around.</p><p>“He offered me a <em>promise.”</em></p><p>“He offers everyone a promise, Will! He grants you nothing of what he promises you! He turns the world against itself, it flips the universe’s creations on their head, injects none of the truth into them, and suddenly, their having to be restrained to a hospital bed as their mouth foams, as they bark about how their going to kill those close to them.” It wasn’t like he was hiding how his statement was aimed directly at Wilbur. He had nobody else to talk to in there, and he was still bitter about what happened in 2005.</p><p>“He allowed me freedom.”</p><p>“Because <em>that </em>makes things better.” John rolled his eyes again and unzipped his military jacket, dropping it to the floor beside him, the watery substance splashing up on to his arms. He wiped it off without a second thought. “You have no freedom in a realm that restricts your being, that plants an optical illusion of the world in your mind. Dammit, Will, we were all rooting for you when you came out of that portal!”</p><p>“I was told the truth.”</p><p>“Yeah. About me and Xander, and so what?” He looked back up Wilbur and placed his military beret in his lap, beginning to get choked up on the fact he’d never be able to see his husband again. “He was there for me, he helped me get myself back. The least you can do is appreciate him.”</p><p>“I hate him.”</p><p>John sighed and scratched at the dead skin around his fingernails, biting the nail on his other hand. “He’s done more for me than <em>you </em>ever did.”</p><p>“<em>I</em> gave you a home, and a job.”</p><p>“And <em>Xander </em>gave me a lifestyle, a romance, a marriage, a family, and comfort. And he also supported me in my promotion as general considering nobody else would take the job.”</p><p>“I still hate him.”</p><p>“You’re just jealous I found someone else to call my family.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t get jealous over my mentee and who they date. That’s creepy.”</p><p>“Yeah. It is. So, <em>stop. It.” </em>John said and bare his teeth at Wilbur who paused before placing the half-eaten apple into his jacket pocket.</p><p>“I hadn’t slept in a week, you know?”</p><p>“Yeah, because of your fears about the mission, you barely tried to hide it.”</p><p>“By the time I was forced into the portal, I was already weakened. He found me tired and fading. He picked me up. He told me what he knew. That I was a man of honour, that I deserved the general title more than anyone, the lies that had been happening behind my back. So, he told me about the truth that all my agents thought about me. About those who beat my name up, those who mocked me, those who threw it to the side like it was nothin’. I was ready to give up. Then he gave me the offer.”</p><p>“Here we go,” John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose tightly.   </p><p>“He gave me everything I wanted in one single flick. He revived me. He told me what the universe wouldn’t. Then I told him I had to leave, that PEIP awaited me, and then he grabbed me. He-“</p><p>John caught on quick enough and managed to stop himself heaving. “Do <em>not </em>tell me that whatever the fuck the Sniggles are…are essentially your children.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Thank God.”</p><p>“Because I’m dead. They are, instead, a minute part of me embedded into the universe prepared to answer any questions that may be asked.”</p><p>“So, your DNA, from your dead body, is a part of the Sniggles! They <em>are </em>your children!”</p><p>“Essentially, yes.”</p><p>“I’m disgusted.”</p><p>“You always would be.”  </p><p>“I hate you.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>John opened his eyes again and looked at his mentor, expecting to see his eyes soft, but they remained sharp, blunt, and an angry reddish brown.</p><p>“How could I say no to an offer like that?”</p><p>His accent shone through, and John chose to ignore it. “You had me.”</p><p>“You were <em>nothing </em>to me.”</p><p>“That’s complete bullshit…” Yet, with the thought, John found himself unable to look at him any longer.</p><p>“The meetings that didn’t exist when you asked to train? The fact I came home at 3 in the morning and left at 5? And you were dumb enough to believe you were <em>wanted </em>by one of the <em>best </em>agents in the military at the time?”</p><p>“PEIP isn’t listed as an official branch of the military,” John mumbled to himself, swallowing down. “I’m sorry for anything I ever did wrong, but I tried my hardest to be a good mentee, and I’d have thought you’d have seen it.”</p><p>“Unfortunately, you weren’t good enough.” Wilbur snarled and John found himself tensing and flinching, folding back in on himself.</p><p>“I was never good enough for anyone…”</p><p>“Not even Xander.”</p><p>John’s breath stopped and he had no choice but to look at the crazed man before him, who’s face was twisted into a proud smile infected with an ugliness unknown to man.</p><p>“What? Did ya really think he’d come get you from here? You’ve got the suits; you’ve got the technology. So where is your lover boy?”</p><p>John found his throat tightening as he clutched the chain around his neck that held his wedding and engagement rings. He swallowed his fears. “Xander’s smart. He knows not to come in here.”</p><p>“You want him to move on?”</p><p>“He’ll find someone better. Someone who isn’t a fuck up.” His voice lowered on the second part. “Look, what are you trying to get involved in? This is the first time I’ve seen you since 2005-“</p><p>“And I still have the same advice I had back then. You got older like I always said you would, and <em>you </em>turned PEIP into a monstrosity.”</p><p>“Your aim was to go against Icacks’ orders, to section PEIP off so only the highest and the richest could get in. Because let me guess. Human rights don’t matter to you.”</p><p>“Dealing with paranormal entities and different dimensions require the most skilled of the bunch, son.”</p><p>“Don’t call me that.”</p><p>“I’ll call you what I want, considering you ain’t <em>my </em>general, are ya?”</p><p>John ignored him.</p><p>“Those with low grades, those with mental disorders, they ain’t no good for me! I don’t got a clue what Icacks saw in the first team, but as soon as I took charge, they were out. John McNamara, you changed that.”</p><p>“I gave kids jobs and homes. I gave people the security they longed for. I am now <em>the </em>best General the force has seen since the branch was founded in the 50s. I overtook Icacks. I hold the utmost power against y-“ All of a sudden, he felt a stabbing pain in his chest. As he gripped the area, gritting his teeth and wincing, he heard the cackle of Wilbur before him, but by that point, John was slumped forward in his chair.</p><p>“You think it’s any good messing with a partial <em>God, </em>Jonathan?!” He laughed again as he watched the golden-haired man wheeze for air.</p><p>“I fucking hate you.”</p><p>“The feeling’s mutual.” He grabbed the apple from his jacket and threw it in the air before taking another bite. “You never answered my question.”</p><p>“I owe you <em>nothing.” </em>McNamara spat before his chest tightened again. By that point, any tears he’d been forcing back without his knowledge had sprung to his eyes. He gasped for breath as he hugged his other arm. He looked down to his hand and saw specks of himself fading off his own body. He knew this would be the outcome of it all, and he’d been foolish not to drop the chain before he walked into the portal with no return. Now he was going to die without offering Xander his most prized possession. He was going to die with his mentor laughing at him. He did what he did best, what he knew the most.</p><p>He ran.</p><p>He could hear Wilbur’s voice shouting after him, telling him there was no point for he’d be dead and that he couldn’t run from his inevitable end he was already aware of. Once he thought he was a safe distance, he collapsed to the floor, still clutching his chest, more importantly the rings around his neck as he continued gasping for air. More bursts of pain bloomed throughout his body that caused him to shake uncontrollably. If he was going to die, he’d have at least wanted to be held while he passed, to show someone cared. Wilbur had planted that idea in his mind that he’d never wanted him, and the team hadn’t appreciated him either.</p><p>It made him regret asking Xander to marry him, it made him regret kissing Xander at work against the wall, it made him regret asking Xander out on a mission that would seal them as boyfriends.</p><p>A tear fell down his face and dripped down into the water below him. John ended up falling on to his back as both of his hands faded into the realm, trailing up his arms, chewing against them until they were gone. Why wasn’t he scared? He saw the red that dripped down what was left of his body and figured he was now lying in the watery consistency, which had turned out to be blood. Xander had been right. John was lying in the blood of The Black and White’s victims.  </p><p>Another sob racked him as well as a stronger burst of pain. He let his hair swish in the blood, probably stained red by now. Xander had always joked he’d look sexy with red hair. Even in his dying moments he found himself thinking of his beloved.</p><p>He closed his eyes and grit his teeth again as the tingling sensation reached his waist, and slowly claimed his abdomen. As he took his last breath, he uttered a final “I love you” to whoever would be there to hear it.</p><p>John McNamara died a hero, and that fact was undeniable. He was written in history as a man, brave enough to sacrifice himself to a realm unknown.</p><hr/><p>The next time he opened his eyes, which shouldn’t have happened, the lighting was blinding and there was a steady beep beside him. He felt the coldness of the chain around his neck and heard the familiar sniffling beside him. He figured he’d made it, one way or another, and that he’d be okay. For now, he was exhausted, and let himself fall back asleep as he felt a hand tangle in his hair. Xander’s. Somehow, John had made it. With the knowledge he was now aware of, he was prepared to make any sacrifice it took if it meant closing that portal to keep Xander safe.</p><p>Wilbur hated Xander, and Wilbur was out for revenge.</p><p>Xander was next.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>not me pulling a plot twist and reviving john mcnamara and then leaving this bitch on a cliffhanger with the knowledge i will never write a chapter 2 because, ya know, it's a oneshot</p><p>anyways, kudos and comments are appreciated !!! but keep things kind</p></blockquote></div></div>
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